Pat Buchanan to Mitt Romney: Run for President in 2016

Pat Buchanan has some no-nonsense advice for Mitt Romney on the 2016 Republican presidential nomination:

Go for it.

“It’s very hard for me to see how someone could look at the fact that he’s got a real shot at the nomination and then walk away from it when the man believes he ought to be president,” Buchanan said Wednesday on “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.

“If it were me and I looked at those kinds of numbers, I’d be on the next flight to Manchester,” Buchanan said.

Romney – who has insisted for months he has no interest in running again after a crushing loss to President Barack Obama in 2012 – acknowledged that “circumstances can change.”

A day after Romney made that teasing statement, a USA Today/Suffolk University poll found 35 percent of likely GOP caucus voters would vote for the former Massachusetts governor in 2016.

Buchanan – a veteran political commentator, former GOP presidential candidate and senior adviser to Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan – said he is impressed with Sen. Rand Paul.

He doesn’t think, as some pundits have suggested, that the Kentucky Republican – in preparation for an expected run for president – is mainstreaming his positions and selling out his libertarian views.

“I wouldn’t use that term on Rand Paul. I like him, but there’s no doubt you’ve got to deal with certain realities . . . He’s a realist in foreign policy. He’s not an isolationist,” Buchanan said.

“There’s no doubt that some of the Libertarians are critical of Rand Paul and they feel he’s not a purist and he’s not as hard-core as his father [former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas].”